I'd Lie
by XxFearTheFluffxX
Summary: She was doing it again. Looking at him surreptitiously when she wasn't supposed to. It wasn't as if she meant to stare at him like a stalker, but she really couldn't help it... 'And if you asked me if I love him, I'd lie.' - ONESHOT -


**Okay, so I needed a little break from writing 'Open Wounds' for a bit, but I didn't want to distract myself by writing for a different couple/anime – thus a Rimahiko oneshot was born! Ta-da! Lol. Anyway, this oneshot is loosely based around Taylor Swift's song 'I'd Lie' (hence the title and snippets of lyrics) so if you haven't heard it already, give it a go.**

**Enjoy.**

-X-

_I don't let nobody see me wishing he was mine_

-X-

She was doing it again. Looking at him surreptitiously when she wasn't supposed to. It wasn't as if she _meant_ to stare at him like a stalker, but she really couldn't help it (even though the thought of him catching her made her want to die). English was boring; he was not. It was simple math when you got right down to it.

Rima sighed, tapping her pencil impatiently on her desk as she mentally scolded herself for the hundredth time that day. She _should_ be paying attention. She _should _be trying to absorb what Nikaido-sensei was saying, for her own good if nothing else. Most importantly, however, she _should _be hating him, the object of her interest, the way she'd hated him in the beginning. As it was, she was starting to wonder if she hated him at all anymore; it sure didn't feel like it.

They were rivals. Enemies. Or at least they used to be. Rima herself didn't know when the change had occurred – had it been the day he made her laugh, or perhaps the day they'd danced the Queen's Waltz? – but she knew as surely as she knew her own name that something between them had changed. For one thing she was _looking _at him. Not glaring, looking. And no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't summon the correct expression to her face.

Nagihiko, unsurprisingly, was oblivious to her gawking – he was watching the front, paying their sensei his undivided attention and listening hard like a good little student. His eyebrows were furrowed in a look somewhere between concentration and determination, and he was biting his bottom lip in that endearing little way he did when he was thinking something through.

_Cute..._ Rima thought vaguely, feeling her stomach twist and coil at the sight of him (which was more annoying than anything else). She felt the heat flood her face and quickly tore her eyes away, forcing them down to focus on the open book before her. Nagihiko was a lot of things, perceptive being one of them; she knew if he looked up and caught her now, staring at him with a red face, he would instantly make the connection. And that was something she could absolutely _not_ allow – she was too proud, too stubborn, to let such a thinghappen.

Peeking up from beneath her long eyelashes, Rima watched as he brushed a stray strand of his long purple hair behind his ear. The gesture was casual, a simple, thoughtless movement with no particular motive behind it, yet for some reason it sent Rima's heart into overdrive. She could hear the blood pulsing in her ears, filling her face and turning it a pretty scarlet. But to her frustration, she couldn't even begin to understand why.

She'd first noticed the subtle changes a few weeks ago – of course by then they'd accumulated, and had become somewhat less subtle, but alone each of the changes was inconsequential. The glaring, she reckoned, had been the first thing to go. She hadn't scowled at him since just after the whole Easter escapade, which had to be some kind of track record. It had probably snowballed from there, and now it had gotten to the stage where she couldn't be in the same room as him without staring like a moron.

It was official – she was going crazy.

Her... ailment... if that's what it was... had manifested itself in other ways too. Like how she always made sure he sat next to her at the Guardian meetings, instead of making sure he sat as far from her as was humanly possible. And how she got a twinge in her gut whenever she saw him talking to other girls (even Amu, though technically speaking she'd never liked him talking to Amu).

And that wasn't all. She got the most peculiar shivers when she looked him in the eye these days... But really, that wasn't exactly herfault. He _did_ have the most spectacular eyes she'd ever seen – Rima had difficulty deciding whether they were a light, woodsy brown or a dark, syrup-like gold. She suspected it was a mixture of the two, which just added to the intrigue.

But the worst thing for Rima – or the best; it depends on the perspective – was that she _knew_ things about him. Every tiny detail he gave away, the little pieces of information about himself that he let slip, she memorised all of it. Not on purpose, of course. It wasn't something she did through a conscious effort. It just sort of happened. Her brain was like a sponge, except instead of soaking up everything, it only soaked up anything Nagihiko-related.

For example, she knew all his favourite songs (word for word too, which was just plain sad). She knew that his favourite colour was green, because green was full of life. She knew he was born on the 4th of July, at exactly 2.32 a.m. (and she knew knowing that was kinda creepy). She knew his 'sister' was himself masquerading as a girl, and she knew his amazing eyes were inherited from his father. Rima was convinced she knew just about everything there was to know about him, and that disturbed her. She was supposed to hate him. He was a liar, a fool, and she was supposed to resent him for it because no one else would. It was her duty. Her obligation. And she was failing.

"Rima? Rima-chan?"

Rima jolted, awakened from her reverie by Amu's voice calling to her. With a certain amount of dread, she turned to face her best friend with as deadpan a face as she could muster. After all, she was Mashiro Rima – indifferent, unaffected, Ice Queen Rima. She had a reputation to uphold.

"Yes, Amu?"

"Were you just... _staring_ at Nagihiko?" Amu asked uncertainly. She knew what she'd seen but surely it was impossible – Rima _hated_ Nagi.

"Maybe I was." Rima replied, injecting the correct amount of disinterest into her tone. But for all her fronts, her heart was pounding, and it was only through sheer will-power that she kept her face a natural hue. "What of it?"

"But... you... Do you like him, Rima-chan?" And the note of excited hope in her question was almost more than Rima could take.

For a second she didn't speak, mulling over the matter in her mind. _Did _she like him? Did she, Mashiro Rima, like Fujisaki Nagihiko? Not so long ago she'd have answered immediately with a huge, resounding 'no'. Now she wasn't so sure.

"Amu-chan, Rima-chan!" Nagihiko greeted them as he approached, smiling brightly. Behind him, the other students filed out the door for break – class was already over. "That was a difficult lesson, wasn't it?"

Rima could feel her face heat up again, and spun away from him in the direction of the door. She marched from the room with nary a backwards glance, determined to get away before either of her fellow Guardians noticed her tell-tale blush. Just before crossing the classroom threshold, she paused.

"No," she called back to Amu, and then continued on her way, intending to visit the bathrooms and splash some cold water on her burning face. In her wake she left a disappointed Amu and a confused Nagihiko... but at least she left with her dignity.

-X-

_And if you asked me if I love him,_

_I'd lie._

-X-


End file.
